I’m having an nice afternoon walk on a sunny September day, cutting across the Safeway lot among beige Camrys and Suburbans massive enough to warp space, and bang! The cleanest thing on wheels I’ve seen outside the Roadster Show. Just a Ford Falcon for the 21st Century.

We got to know the ’61 Falcon in its CC this spring. Fifty years ago it was the All-American Six compact that sold the best. Simple, straightforward, honest value. Big chrome bumper, thick blackwall tires on skinny steel wheels, a bit of trim. Lots of faithful Falcons gave their drivers solid service for many years.

This one must have been extra good to deserve its second life in the year 2011. Luscious black lacquer, low-profile tires on billet wheels. Absolutely clean. Bright red shelf, steering rim, dash and taillights set it off sharply.

21st Century cars don’t have big chrome bumpers or exposed gas caps.

They do have bucket seats, a console, and digital instrumentation. That red instrument under the radio is a FAST dual-sensor digital fuel-air meter. I’d like to know what it’s monitoring, but the owner was not around.

25 Comments

Absolutely gorgeous, until you get down to the wheels. Why do I have a feeling that some custom 15″ or 16″ hoops with tyres that actually have sidewalls would look better on this car. Dubs aren’t the answer to everything.

If this car had been customized in the 1960’s, the grille and the taillights would have been the first things to change. Part of this custom’s appeal to me is how it makes the stock grille and taillights stand out. What was common before is special now.

Exactly. The owner customizes his car, to have something special. Well, in this day and age, ANY 1961 Falcon is “special.” Clean ones were rare even when I was a kid; most specimens had advanced body-rot and were living out their last days as trailer-park limos.

To me, to customize the exterior of something this old, is just sacrilege. Leave it as it was….a memento to a long-gone race! Red interior makes it “special” enough as it is…

You’d like the ’47 Jeep CJ I met at the corner store today. It was a barn find and the owner restored it pure stock, Picket Gray. Looks like new. It even carries ’47 plates he found at an antique shop. It was a nice afternoon so he took it out to pick up some beer.

It’s been an interesting experiment to run a custom here. I think you guys have put your finger on why we like our curbsides classic.

I do like but it is a bit “over customized” for my taste. Smaller wheels would help. Reminds me of back before the “dub” craze when many custom and hot rod mags suggested to their readers that if they were to customize a “big” car (like a Lincoln, Cadillac, Imperial, full size Chrysler) MORE sidewall was better. Now that the giant wheels have hit the market I think the same applies to a small car like this that would look silly with “rubber band” tires.

The dubs and skinny tires look way too much like old wagon wheels to suit me. I’d go with 14×6 wheels myself. And JP, you are right on: Not Enough Red Interiors. But I sure like the car…smooth and uses the Falcon’s lines to good effect.

Thats a cool early Falcon Paul I love the clean look hate those wheels they ruin it, much better would be some alloys off a later model Falcon in 15 or16 they still use the same pattern but having done the panels Id be swapping in later OHC Falcon power train brakes wheels, it all fits.

It’s gorgeous, but IMO really needs 16″ steelies with baby moons and its bumpers, trim, and wipers put back on. I know it’s a “look”, but to me it always looks like the car just came out of the paint shop and hasn’t been fully reassembled yet. That could be the story with this one — leaving the car parked at the supermarket with that paint job and no bumpers would be pretty nerve-wracking. I’d have to at least have some nerf bars on there…

A funny thing about the wheels and tires – in general I hate them too, rubber bands on wagon wheels. But they looked fine on this car in person. Looking at the pictures now, I agree they look wrong.

Here’s a shot I didn’t use. It shows how losing the bumper and trim nicely brings out the arc of the body-side crease. Again the wheels didn’t stand out in person, but they look wrong in the photo. Funny.

Well, it leaves too little suspension travel and delivers a punishing ride at best and a dangerous one at worst. Looking at the visible part of the tires shows that the suspension has virtually no travel. Wouldn’t want to drive that on I-20… It’d feel like going 70 mph in a Radio Flyer. Having owned a ’65 Ranchero and a ’64 Comet wagon, I can tell you these vehicles don’t need extra challenges in that dept either! IIRC, these are the cars that had to be re-engineered for Oz because the roads there broke the first wave (maybe Bryce can correct me if I’m wrong).

But at least the Big Wheel look is less absurd looking than than the tiny-diameter-wide-width “car-on-rollers” look we had a few years back…

You are right Btrig, the ball joints used to fail pretty quickly. Apparently it took the dumping of some failed parts on the Ford President’s (Lee Dykstra) desk to get some proper action, they were replaced with Fairlane balljoints which were much stronger. Of course in Australia the cars were not just puttering around the suburbs or along an interstate, they would see a lot of punishment on unsealed roads.

I think the big wheels are too much, you would get the same visual impact with 2″ less diameter and have a bit more sidewall to allow the tire to interact with road properly – 60’s cars have too much camber change to run with such a low profile IMO. I do however think the chrome wheels work with the missing bumpers.

Well the front rims are too skinny, but the design and diameter is ok with me. Yes, the XKs were the ones that had an unfortunate habit of breaking in Australia, but the design was fixed pretty well.

Loving the rest of the car – plenty of nice 1960 onwards Falcon sedan and wagons still around here in NZ, but the 2-doors were never sold here, so I enjoyed the photos above!

By the way, we can still get red interior trim (doors, seats, lower dash) in the Holden Commodore as a special-order option. Rocks my world each time I see the one that’s been optioned like that! Isn’t the current Mustang available with red interior? I remember all the old Triumphs and Jags with red leather, very yummy!

Hello all,
I am the owner of the 61 Falcon. I was actually only away from the car a few minutes so I was surprised to see the write up web surfing. Believe me I watch it like a hawk. Well in fact the car has been in the roadster show the last 2 years. It does has full air ride suspension to take away any concerns regarding the ride quality. The motor is a fully built tri-powered 200 cu.in. Dyno’d out at 185hp/220tq. Ford 8″ with 3:80 gears mated to a T5. The wheels are a 18 x 7 Billets. 215 / 225 -40 combo. Car is fun to drive. I have attached a additional pic.
Kevin

i’ve got a 60 falcon that i’m going custom with. but the old school way. personally, i get sick everytime i see lo-pro’s on a classic car. yes this car did come with 13’s origionally. i’m still running the 4 lug 13’s and i plan on turning my thin whites out to wide whites. i have a lot of plans with it down the line. i can appreciate that someone put a lot of work into this, i just would have done it way different. just my opinion.